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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Posts by cytania
Looping... neat idea, loopers scare me almost as much as drum machines but I had thought of getting some actual percussion. Maybe create a loop with that...
Sound opinions though, even though it would be fun to play to a retro 80s beat it could break the whole mood.
Just discovered the ART Phantom I box, looks like it could be the cheap answer I'm after. Now all I need is to find a device with the right cheesy beat I think?
OK so I've played one gig. The PA used XLR inputs for microphones and took a DI off the back of my bass rig (hence keeping the vol down so I didn't howl and boom).
For the next one we'd like to give the drummer a break. I reckon Squeeze's 'Goodbye Girl' would work well with a metronome or cheap drum machine as the original used a cheesy 'casio' type sound. But how would one of these connect to the PA?
I didn't want to get into expensive preamps and DI boxes. How do keyboards connect into a PA usually, can't be MIDI can it?
Wow! That was a hot gig! Literally, in temperature terms...
Clearly our rehearsals should have included standing in the dark under electric fires. The UK has just gone from a very wintery April into a very hot May. So from practising underground in sweaters we went to that stage shirt of mine soaking in sweat.
As predicted there were some minor fluffs but good news is no false starts, no breakdowns, no major getting lost. Keeping on the one was tough though, we were down one throwback speaker, so although PA sound was great on stage we heard ourselves in a subdued way. Glad poor rehearsal acoustics prepared us for this...
Been a long while since my life has focused so much on one moment. Whoosh, and then you can hardly remember it. Only one answer to this... new set material, more practice, new rehearsals...
This is partly an answer to an old post on how 'easy is a bass to play'. Here's what I've learnt.
Plucking roots IS easy and sometimes all that's needed, BUT putting them at the right part of the beat with the right emphasis is hard. When a song is building no one wants a loud bass trumpeting in from nowhere. Likewise you don't always have the drummer to tie in with sometimes you have to make the downbeat and the drummer comes in with you, big responsibility.
Guitarists listen to your bass and drums. First few rehearsals I was rubbish, racing to catch up with galloping guitars, then the drummer had to skip ahead. Worst thing was the guitars were so happy with their stuff being note perfect they didn't hear we'd murdered the song. Things only changed when I started stopping the session and saying, wait for THIS part before you play the riff.
When you tune up and make a fine tone on the amp remember it may need to be a bit louder and bit snarlier to be heard by guitars and drums. Drums depend on you for rhythmic cues. So keep the bass head nodding in time and be prepared to play in an exaggerated way to indicate a chorus fill coming up. If the drummer loses a stick keep playing, if you keep the beat they'll pick up that stick and get back in.
Get the downbeat, the one, this is harder than it sounds. Even when you're right next to the drums the sound on stage or in rehearsals can be terrible, you may have to look to see if the bass drum skin is kicking. Some kick drums don't show much from the front either so be prepared to stare at your drummer's right knee. If you're doing the right kind of rhythmn for the song you'll hear the drummer's stick moves, be it hi-hat or snare or tom, inbetween your notes. This is a magic zone, being there is the drug that bass players thrive on ;-)
In just over 52 hours time I step on stage with my bass for my first ever gig. Have spare cables and a stage shirt so reflective the audience will be blinded!
Hopefully I may be able to post video clips in a few weeks time and you can laugh at the fluffed notes!
Possibly the most famous headstock repair, Jaco Pastorius' 'Bass Of Doom';
http://www.bassplayer.com/pop-up.aspx?c … ion_code=6
Note the veneer sandwich, must have been a nasty break.
How about a Washburn Idol Wi66Pro. Very versatile thinline type guitar.
I'm reminded of a Gibson collector in last month's G&B magazine who has dozens of Les Pauls. He bought two models from a recent range (so quality control factor is strong and ageing/abuse factor low) yet they sounded so different he christened them 'creamer' and 'screamer'.
When a guitar is distorted the 'bad' parts of the string vibration/pickups make for bad distortion. A good guitar distorted will make nice sounding harmonics with a valve amp. Of course a punk band might want a nasty ear-splitting sound.
However I reckon there's alot of patriotic huff and puff expressed on MIM versus MIA. Truth is there are good and bad in both. If you have the time and the ear you can save $$$ by looking through the racks of MIM (Squiers even!) to find a superior instrument. Likewise you could buy MIA online only to get the Friday afternoon guitar.
Moral: choose at the store on what you can feel and hear.
Best that can be said is that if you've self-diagnosed yourself with terminal GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) then a Line6 Variax could help you try out and get tired of alot of different guitar sounds very rapidly. Of course the thing can't really do actual playing dynamics. Maybe a plus when it's simulating a big bodied model with an awful neck ;-)
PS. When I say DI box I mean using regular jacks, mini-jacks or jack to phono cables. A real DI box you might use in a live situation needs an XLR output that you only get on the Line6 X3 pod, but it is very rare for guitarists to play DI-ed.
Great post NELA, as I see it options are;
1) Tune guitar down so all strings are a semitone or tone slacker. Problem here is you can't quickly change to another song in regular tuning.
2) Use the capo to raise pitch
3) Transpose the chords using Chordie's wonderful services and keep the guitar open in regular pitch. The previous two methods can give you an idea of how many steps in which direction you need to go.
Some songs are 'singer's songs' they are big, showy and range across the octaves, you often see this kind of song on American Idol and yep, the contestants often get pitchy or fail to carry it. Even these songs can be tamed by reinterpreting them but we're getting into singer's stuff here...
Great write-up here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Jaguar
For me the main put-off is the switches being so close to the playing area, all too easy hit them and accidentally change mode. Perhaps they are re-sited on the one you saw?
Each manufacturer has their own history of quality highs and lows, build changes etc.
Gretsch spent alot of the 50s/60s innovating (or ruining depending on your view) their classic designs. In the 90s they tried to recreate their heyday but created strange 'a part from every year' hybrids, only recently have they gotten designs that directly compare with the classic years. Now all these instruments sound 'Gretsch'y it's just a case of how you like them. But certainly you could collect what several of what are called gretsch 6120s and find yourself with some very different feeling and sounding guitars.
Tibernius, quality with Tokai's has never really dropped, nothing special about the 70s/80s ones.
Think Schecter must be marketing itself bigtime as I've seen lots just recently, they were an uncommon brand in the UK but in a shop I went to yesterday they had as much of the rack as PRS. I'd say Gibson is the brand losing out, sure they have the historic mojo but I don't see them hanging up in long lines for sale.
I'm tempted by a Washburn so I can try their BF tuning system (does it really sound sweeter?) but they haven't sent me the catalogue I asked for and the website is confusing (that or they've had a recent big model overhaul).
Hi Deaken, I have a Behringer V-Amp 2 and a fine little box it is too. It's one of 3 products all using the same amp modelling technology. There's the Behringer Vampire amplifier which is similar to Line6's Spider series, there's a rack mount version of the Vamp2 and then there's the little blue plastic guitar shaped pod I have (similar to Line6's red bean shaped units). It can be used as an effects box by putting the amp dial at 12 o'clock which is 'tube preamp' or if you hold the tap key and dial 12 it has no persoanlity other than the effects you select. It scores for using 'dials' which makes playing with effects easy. Line6's 3 series gives a better readout of what preset you have and their site has lots of user generated settings, but I've gravitated to making my own sound from basic amps and effects I like. A real education in what amps do before you even buy a proper one.
Most of the time I plug headphones into it's speaker emulated socket. That means it sounds just like the full rig and the reverbs are so good you almost feel you are in a big hall with a stack. You can also use it for home recording as a 'DI' box. I have tried it into various amps (which does need a spare cable) and the results are mixed. Sending a highly tweaked preset can be awful but working with the dials with the less extreme amps and standard effects can be better than many cheapo pedals. Great thing again is it allows you to experiment. For a few hours I'm convinced that Leslie is the greatest effect ever, then I come back and realise it sucks, that's just one silly pedal I didn't end up buying :-)
You mentioned lead singers who don't play. Well alot of lead singers with guitars drapped around their necks rarely if ever play them, maybe they take one set-piece solo. It's tough being a singer, alone and naked on stage, so a guitar gives them a prop, something to pose with.
The other name for lead singer is front man. This tells you alot about their role, it's not all about singing or playing, it's about 'fronting' the group. A top requirement for a frontman is height. They should tower over the audience, be ready to bat cans away with the mike stand and bop the can-thrower with it's feet. The front man puts down hecklers, talks to the audience whilst guitar strings are changed, works the crowd, tells jokes, fixes everyone with an icy stare, builds atmosphere. It's a tough job and groups with a character like this have an easier time. Think Jim Morrison, Gene Vincent, Bono or Ian Dury.
Rock'n'roll dressing-up goes back a long way, just look at some of Little Richard's stage outfits. Then there's Elvis dressing in pink or gold sequins. The real question is when did rock get dull and boring. One such nadir was around 1970 when everyone wore denim and t-shirts.
You are wrong about Punk stopping Glam, in many ways punks were trying to get back to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust look, the Damned were huge Sweet fans emulating their heros with a halloween look. One of the key things about the British rock scene 76-77 was many of the older rock groups were off in America or fighting their record contract or taking a year off. Left without decent rock their fans decided to D-I-Y. New Wave was just a tag for groups that were too late to be punk and didn't want to be judged as punk, in many ways their sound was similar just less brutal.
The Eighties New Wave stopped after Live Aid. Why? Well alot of punters got turned on to big Stadium gigs after being at Live Aid and alot of British 'New Wave' bands couldn't hold their own in a Stadium, Americans like Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Tina Truner etc. were in their element.
If you like to play in the cutaway zone, down where the frets are narrow then you might want to check intonation with the new strings. Gently hold the strings at the 12th fret and see if they are in tune when the string is tuned open. If they are sharp or flat you may have gone a gauge out of where your bridge was setup for.
One key weapon in SRV's armoury was a Tubescreamer pedal. Originals like he used are fetching high prices but reissues and even hot-rodded reissue pedals are widely available. If you are in a home practive situation than look for a Pod vitual amp as these usually have a preset that gives instant Stevie, my Behringer Vamp 2 certainly has this preset.
If you are a beginner try for a more general blues sound simply by rolling off the treble on your guitar, dropping the volume to bite point and turning the amp up with gain engaged but way down low.
Hi Phil, one of the miraculous things about electro-acoustics is that they can sound much nicer amplified right than played natural. Those Piezos can make a mid-price instrument sound like something twice the price.
When you get to several thousand euros in price all the makers have a decent offering and there are many fine small makers like George Lowden. It all depends on the sound you want. Lowden guitars have a 'celtic' folk tone. Gibsons have that sixties/Beatles vibe. You need to listen and decide...
I'm not sure one inventor of the electric guitar will ever be pinned down. What it does confirm is that the 30s and 40s were the golden age of American invention. I'm not sure Gibson qualify just for sticking a pickup on a hollowbody archtop. Les Paul certainly deserves mention as a populariser but his namesake guitar is very traditional in many ways (just solid-bodied). For me Leo Fender is _the man_ because he created so many landmark instruments. Not just the esquire but the telecaster, the stratocaster, the precision bass, the jazz bass, the Music Man Stingray active bass... any one of those five would put him on Les Paul's level but together they make him Mr.Guitar Innovator.
Anyone got any practise tips/techniques/exercises for fretting gently. I'm getting finger pain and I know it's because I grab and grip too hard. But how to get out of the habit?
Intonation is about making sure your guitar is in tune on every fret. When most guitarists tune by picking open strings with an electronic tuner they are ensuring a guitar is in tune near the headstock. Fine for open chords but not for soloing etc.
The first step to getting intonation is to gently hold down the strings at twelth fret. Is it sharp or flat when the open string is in tune. Adjust the intonation screws/saddles to compensate.
There is alot more to intonation and if you read up on the Buzz Feiten Tuning System you'll find out that getting the thole neck tuned is very tricky...
Your acoustic guitar is setup with an intonation which ties in to the strings the maker expects to be used. You can usually go one up or down from the recommended gauge without problems. On archtops a floating bridge can be moved to correct intonation (so long as the neck takes it). Electrics usually have moveable saddles although they do not always move enough for all gauges.
To check intonation tune with an electric tuner on all strings. Now fret at the twelth fret lightly*. The pitch should be the same. Repeat this across all the strings. If your gauge is wrong for the guitar you may find the twelth fret always sharp or flat. Older guitars can need a correction called a bridge reset, experienced luthiers only.
* You'll be amazed how much the pressure you fret with effects the sharpness of the note ideally you want the intonation to match your regular playing pressure. Trouble is when you are tuning you tend to overdo it.
Guitar chord forum - chordie → Posts by cytania
